In the center of the room in a bay-windowed office known as “the fishbowl,” the video programming team of ChicagoTribune.com quietly launched a Tribune “first.” With minimal equipment and three tripods, they produced and directed a live webcast as election results unfolded.

I shared the honor of hosting the program with Chicago Tribune luminaries Rick Kogan, Jenniffer Weigel and Phil Rosenthal. For more than five hours, we talked politics, interviewed guests and ended the night with a glimpse at the next day’s front page.

The program broadcast on www.ChicagoTribune.com via Ustream.tv. The site captured about 175,000 live views, from Chicago to Canada, Australia, Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom. You can replay it here.

We returned the next morning for an hourlong recap of election results. Did I mention we had a blast? We did. And an awful lot of coffee.